1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of bookbinding and, in particular, to container for dispensing adhesive binder strips.
2. Description of the Related Art
Binder strips having a paper substrate covered with a heat activated adhesive layer have become increasing popular for use in bookbinding. This method of bookbinding has become a low cost alternative to commercial bookbinding. An exemplary binder strip is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,496,617, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. An exemplary desktop binding machine for binding books using the binder strips is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,052,873, the contents of which are also incorporated herewith by reference. Referring to the drawings, FIG. 1 shows a binder strip 20 disposed adjacent the insertion point 30A of a conventional binding machine 30. A user first places a stack of sheets 32 to be bound in an upper opening of the machine. Controls 30B are then activated to commence the binding process. The binding machine operates to sense the thickness of the stack 32 and indicates on a machine display 30C the width of binder strip 20 to be used. Typically, three widths can be used, including wide, medium and narrow. The binder strip includes a flexible substrate 20A having a length that corresponds to the length of the edge of the stack 32 to be bound and a width somewhat greater than the thickness of the stack. A layer of heat-activated adhesive is disposed on one side of the substrate, including a low viscosity, low tack central adhesive band 20C and a pair of high viscosity, high tack outer adhesive bands 20B.
Once the user has selected a binder strip 20 of appropriate width, the user manually inserts the strip 20 into the strip loading port 30A of the machine. The end of the strip, which is positioned with the adhesive side up, is sensed by the machine and is drawing into the machine using an internal strip handling mechanism. The machine then operates to apply the strip to the edge of the stack to be bound. The strip is essentially folded around the edge of the stack, with heat and pressure being applied so as to activate the adhesive. Once the adhesive has cooled to some extent, the bound book is removed from the binding machine so that additional books can be bound.
FIG. 2 depicts a partial end view of the bound stack 32. As can be seen, the binder strip substrate 20A is folded around the bound edge of the stack. The high tack, high viscosity outer adhesive bands 20B function to secure the strip to the front and back sheets of the stack. These sheets, which function as the front and rear covers, can be made of heavy paper or the like. The central low viscosity adhesive band 20C functions to secure the individual sheets of the stack by flowing up slightly between the sheets during the binding process.
Although manual feeding of the binder strip permits books to be bound at a fairly high rate, there is a need for an apparatus that can feed binder strips to binding machines at a higher rate. Such apparatus preferably could be used with a wide variety of binder machines and binder strips. Further, such apparatus would preferably be capable of storing a relatively large number of binder strips and be capable of fabrication using materials that are recyclable. As will be apparent from a reading of the following Detailed Description of the Invention together with the drawings, the present invention provides the above-described features.